Played our first game with "if the Lord spares us" rules yesterday. It was a great game

The game was in 6mm, with the scenario based on the battle of Romani from August 1916, where two light horse brigades fought a delaying action against two Turkish infantry divisions. Our game started with one light horse brigade ( three regiment with HMG and artillery support) on the table with one in reserve. Two Turkish infantry regiments (six battalions, with HMG and artillery support) and one cavalry regiment entered the table on the first turn.

The result was a narrow victory to the light horse when the reserve bridge arrived only just in time to prevent a stunning Turkish victory.

Due to lack of experience, we didn't play the suppression rules properly. We didn't realise a company was forced to retire once suppression rises above their movement rate. Can I ask, does the company keep retiring until their suppression drops below their movement rate? Additionally, we were considering to not allowing a company that is forced to retire due to suppression to fire; what are your thoughts on this?

Hi Darren,
Welcome to ITLSU, they are a set of rules which always produce interesting games in our experience.

We usually play it that the unit just retires on the next turn it is activated. If it receives further suppression points it will retire again. Otherwise it basically hugs the ground and doesn't move.

As to restricting its ability to fire this is already covered in the rules. A firing unit loses 1D6 for each 2 suppression points on it, so a 4 base company would be reduced to 0 firing dice before it is forced to retire. Are you suggesting you ignore rule 9.6 on firing with zero dice for retiring units? Not unreasonable.

I am suggest that rule 9.6 is ignored for units that are forc d to fall back due to suppression.
The reason being the particular unit has hard a time in combat and is concerns get to safe position rather than looking for more combat, I believe this reflect what my toy soldiers historical counter parts would be doing.

As I said ignoring 9.6 in these circumstances is not an unreasonable suggestion. So I'd say try it and see. To be honest I'd forgotten about 9.6 until you asked the question so I suspect we have been playing without applying it and hadn't noticed!
I suppose, in its support, it does allow even the most battered unit an element of self defence which might make a slight difference to its fate.

In our games we decided that such a unit would continue to retire on each subsequent activation until the excessive suppression was removed by either the Brigade Commander or the Battalion Officers (most effective). If not present then an individual sub unit could take an individual test (See Sect 11.2) which usually allows it to eventually stop moving backwards but not remove suppression entirely.